Lesley Lopez

Lesley Jeanne Lopez (born November 28, 1983) is an American politician who is a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from District 39.

A member of the Democratic Party, she is currently a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Maryland's 6th congressional district, seeking to succeed outgoing U.S. Representative David Trone.

The oldest of three siblings, Lopez was born overseas while her mother Patricia was serving on active duty in the U.S. Navy.

She grew up in Southern California in a blended family.

As a child she was adopted by her stepfather, Emsley Lopez, also a naval officer.

Her paternal grandparents migrated to the United States from the Philippines.

Lopez attended schools in San Bernardino, California.

While in elementary school, she survived a school shooting in which a man from a neighboring apartment complex began shooting at her classmates.

She later attended the University of California, San Diego, where she earned a B.A. in political science, and George Washington University, where she earned an M.P.A. in management.

After graduating, Lopez worked as a journalist for ABC News's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, BBC, CNN, America's Most Wanted, and the Eurovision Song Contest.

She also worked as an adjunct professor of communications at George Washington University, where she became a member of Service Employees International Union Local 500.

Lopez first became involved with politics while working with immigrant families.

She served as the press secretary for U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar from 2008 to 2011, afterwards serving as the communications director for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus until 2013.

In this capacity, she helped pass the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act through the U.S. Senate and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which was expanded to include protections for undocumented immigrants.

Lopez later worked as the communications director for various other organizations, including the National Immigration Forum, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, and the US-China Business Council, from 2014 to 2017.

Since 2017, she has worked as the chief communications director for Run for Something.

In 2017, after state delegate Charles E. Barkley announced that he would run for the Montgomery County Council at-large district in 2018, Lopez filed to run for state delegate in District 39.

She ran on a slate with state senator Nancy J. King and state delegates Kirill Reznik and Shane Robinson.

Lopez won the Democratic primary election on June 27, 2018, placing first with 21.3 percent of the vote.

Lopez was sworn into the Maryland House of Delegates on January 9, 2019.

She was a member of the Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2022, afterwards serving on the Health and Government Operations Committee.

Lopez ran for re-election in 2022, during which she formed a slate with union activist Clint Sobratti, who sought to unseat incumbent delegate Gabriel Acevero.

All three incumbents, including Acevero, won the Democratic primary on July 19, 2022.

In September 2019, Lopez joined Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and 43 other members of the Maryland General Assembly in co-signing a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos asking for information about her implementation of the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

During the 2021 legislative session, Lopez endorsed a bill to expand collective bargaining rights to employees at Maryland's 16 community colleges.

In August 2019, Lopez said she opposed the Maryland State Police's decision to repeal limits for concealed carry permits for business owners, pointing out that the decision followed mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.

During the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Lopez endorsed U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren.

In March 2022, Lopez was voted in as the president of the Women's Caucus of Maryland by a 50–12 vote, one year ahead of when she was due to become its president under the caucus's traditional order.

In response, the 11 Republican members of the caucus resigned from the caucus in protest, later demanding it be renamed to the "Democrat Women's Caucus of Maryland".

Lopez defended her election, saying in an interview with Maryland Matters that she "had some plans of what I wanted to do [as caucus president] when I moved up so I accelerated the timeline" and had approached state senator Adelaide Eckardt, a Republican, about joining her leadership team, but she declined.

She had also sent handwritten notes to each of the members who had left the caucus.

Republicans have since declined to rejoin the caucus, and have discussed forming their own.

On June 1, 2023, she announced her candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives in Maryland's 6th congressional district to succeed outgoing U.S. Representative David Trone.

During the Democratic primary, she received endorsements from several members of the legislature and ran on a platform of gun safety, addressing the opioid crisis, and protecting reproductive rights.

In 2020, Lopez introduced a bill requiring firearms to be stored in an area where a minor could not gain access to it.

During the 2021 legislative session, Lopez introduced legislation to ban privately made firearms.

The bill failed to pass out of committee.

She reintroduced the bill in 2022, during which it passed and became law without Governor Hogan's signature.

Following the bill's passage, Lopez was invited to the White House by President Joe Biden, where he announced a new United States Department of Justice rule regulating privately made firearms.

Lopez supports a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.